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Neither escalating nor de-escalating the anti-government protests in Greece continue to simmer against a backdrop of fiscal crisis and the need of the ruling 'socialist' party PASAC to renege on their promises to Greek workers, the better to serve their international financial masters. Here's an update from the LibCom site about what happened yesterday.

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Marches against repression in Greece:
Marches against the hideous police repression unleashed in the days commemorating the assassination of A. Grigoropoulos took place in Greece after two days of clashes.

Marches against state terror unleashed in the last few days against the movement took place in Athens and Salonica on Tuesday 8/12 amidst government lies and bragging of its ability to detain more than 800 citizens out of which 13 have been charged during the marches in memory of Alexandros Grigoropoulos.

In Athens the protest march called at Propylea at 19:00 found the university asylum grounds once again blocked by long triple chains of riot cops in utter breach of the 16th article of the constitution. Faced with intensifying challenge by the gathered protesters police officers in charged claimed this was done under the demands of the rectorial authorities, leading the crowd to chant "cops, TV and rectors all the scum work together". Despite the overwhelming police forces and the tiredness of two days of continuous confrontation, the 2,000 strong march took to the streets of Athens in high spirits towards the Parliament and then to Omonoia chanting anti-police slogans all the way. There were no clashes during the march. At the same time the administration headquarters of the Technical Schools of Athens (TEI) have been occupied by protesters against police brutality and the breach of the asylum. Student organisations have called a new protest march against police brutality and breach of the asylum for Friday.

Earlier the same day pupils marches took place in many Athens' neighborhood against state terror. In Chaidari pupils clashes with police forces which were piled with oranges and other projectiles; 3 pupils were detained during the clashes. Tension also built up during a pupil protest march in Kamatero with pupils throwing projectiles to cops and during a pupil march towards the central prisons of the country in Koridalos with children lighting fires around the penal premises. Finally pupils of the Grava complex once again marched to the Agias Lavras police station that had come under attack in the previous days.

In Salonica, the protest march took to the streets of the city a 18:00 fueled by the recent breaches of the university asylum by delta-team thugs. A similar protest march took place in Rethymnon, Crete where the police was supported in its work of intimidation by local fascists.

On the legal front all 22 comrades of Resalto have been released with extortionate monetary guarantees (amounting to around 40,000 euros in total). The trial will be held in March.

The recent days of unrest have led to a head-on confrontation of left wing parties with the government. In a hideous gesture of propaganda, the attacker of Ms Koutsoumbou - the elderly woman who was hit by a delta-team motorbiker who then proceeded to beat her up causing brain injuries and internal bleeding - visited her at hospital claiming that it was all an accident. EEK, the Workers' Revolutionary Party whose member is Ms Koutsoumbou held a press conference today denouncing the visit as hypocritical and stressing that not only the policeman targeted and then hit the veteran anti-junta struggler, but after dismounting and beating her on the head with a glob, he also attacked a doctor who tried to give first aid to the woman. The police even refused to call an ambulance to her assistance claiming its a trick so that the protesters can burn it. EEK claims this amounts to an assassination attempt by the policeman. The government insists it was all an accident, infuriating other parts of the left which have come out openly against the government they were flirting with only a month ago. The Radical Left Coalition has accused the Minister of Public Order of being a right wing-fascist hybrid. The typically delirious Mr Chrisochoidis has retorted attacking both the local council of Keratsini for its support of Resalto and the occupiers of the local city hall, and the radical left as covering "nazis" and "vandals". The notoriously FBI decorated minister claimed he will abolish use of tear gas and replace it with Operation Motorman type water cannon-barricade breaking street tanks which were abolished by the first Socialist government in 1981.

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And here, also from Libcom, is an addendum as to what has been happening today.

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Update:

On the morning of 9/12 pupils attacked the police department of Alexandria in Amathia with molotov cocktails. Meanwhile street cleaners and garbage collectors have renewed their strike for another 48h. Athens is currently plunged in piles of rotting garbage half blocking the streets.

On the legal front 3 of the people arrested in Salonica have been imprisoned pending their trial. Legal processes of the other people arrested during the last days unrest continue in various Greek cities. In Mytelene, Lesbos island, 4 radio stations were occupied by protesters who broadcasted communiques demanding the immediate release of all the arrested. Manolis Glezos the Resistance veteran known for lowering the Nazi flag from the Acropolis during the Occupation has denounced the detentions as state terror against the people and the movement, while the Lawyers Association of Keratsini has joined in denouncing the Resalto arrests are political repression. In an audacious incident characteristic of the ethics of the Greek state, a boy was released in Salonica after the police admitted to the interrogator that it had "planted him" with a bag filled with molotov cocktails. The officers have not been suspended or charged.

On the other hand, in a move of collaborationism unheard of since the junta, the rectorial authorities of the Athens Law School have announced measures ousting and disallowing entrance on non-students in its premises. In Chania an investigation has started on the collaboration of the police with fascist groups during the latest unrest after the publication of photos of the police commander of the operations openly coordinating the thugs. Fascists have attacked immigrants in Chania twice since the end of the troubles.

The latest developments come in a climate of extreme economic tension as Greece's Fitch borrowing status was downgraded yesterday amidst international estimations that the country cannot pay off its debts. The downgrading has led to a collapse of the stock market to a 10 year low. The PM has announced that the country is for the first time in a "crisis of national sovereignty since 1974" adding most dramatically that "the motherland is in intensive care". The government fears that structural reforms demanded for the upgrading of the country's borrowing status would lead to a social upheaval that will make the December Uprising look like a Saturday night riot.

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Meanwhile a debate rages, fueled, of course, by the government, about the right of "university asylum" in Greece. Since the overthrow of the military dictatorship in 1973 universities have been "no-go zones" for the police, in recognition of the leading role that students played in that revolution. The Greek government is doing its best to promulgate as much bad publicity as it can in preparation for an eventual move against this safe base from which the anarchists and others can sally forth to do battle. The 'University asylum' has, as the above article pointed out, already been violated in some minor ways. The government, trying to out-conservative the conservatives no doubt plans further, much more serious, breaches of this right. Here's an article from the New York Times about certain incidents that are being played up as part of this campaign. With more or less approval on the part of the NYT.

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Debate Rages in Greece About Right of Police to Enter University Campuses:
By NIKI KITSANTONIS
Published: December 9, 2009
A new wave of violent attacks against academics is sweeping campuses in Athens and Thessaloniki, leading Greek professors ( or at least a few of them-Molly ) to question a law that bans police officers from entering university grounds.

The law exists nowhere else in Europe, but it has been sacrosanct in Greece since the fall of a military dictatorship that bloodily suppressed a student rebellion at the Athens Polytechnic in 1973 in which at least 23 people were killed.

Last weekend saw a peak in the violence, which has spiraled in recent months along with general social unrest, a spike in crime and a resurgence of domestic terrorism.

Hundreds of anti-establishment protesters stormed university buildings during demonstrations being held in memory of a teenager who was shot and killed by a police officer a year ago, an event that sparked some of the worst riots ever in the capital.

The rector of the University of Athens, Christos Kittas, was sent to intensive care Sunday, after being beaten by assailants using iron bars and then thrown out of his office. Mr. Kittas, who was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday after recovering from a heart attack, called on fellow academics and politicians to tackle the problem on campuses. He said he “felt dead inside watching young people who could be my grandchildren or students commit crimes and vandalize the shrine to free thought.”

Last week, a professor at the Athens University of Economics and Business, Gerasimos Sapountzoglou, was targeted by extremists who beat and throttled him when he refused to stop a lecture. Several other academics have suffered similar attacks in Athens and Thessaloniki in recent months.

Anastassios Manthos, rector of Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University, who was knocked unconscious in a similar campus raid last year, said things had gotten worse. “The violence in universities, and in Greek society in general, is explosive and unprecedented,” he said.
He cited the worsening economy and an inadequate education sector as key reasons for the discontent that has also fueled crime, terrorism and assaults on authors at parties for book signings in Athens cafes.

Mr. Manthos blamed the violence at universities on “members of anti-establishment and anarchist groups and a tiny portion of the student population.”

“It’s a type of terrorism,” he said.

The gangs behind the attacks range in size from 10 to 50 people with the assailants usually vandalizing university property. The ensuing occupations on campuses last for a few hours. During the attacks, which occur every couple of weeks, slogans are usually spray-painted on walls or banners hung on buildings condemning “state oppression.”

A self-proclaimed anarchist who participated in protests over the weekend said the unrest was the only way disaffected young people can make their point. “What’s a poor kid with no prospects supposed to do? He’ll pick up a stone and throw it at police or he’ll force his way into the spotlight,” said Yiannis Anagnostou, 37, an agronomist who calls himself a Communist and anarchist sympathizer. ( Quite the mixture-Molly )

As for the violence against academics, he was unmoved. “They should know better than to play the role of guard. When you see a crowd of angry people, you get out of the way,” he said.
Rectors agree that the so-called university asylum law, introduced in 1982 to protect the freedom of expression that had been championed by the fallen students, is being exploited by extremists to suppress the views of others. “It is not just about organized attacks — there is a general climate of fear in universities,” said Yiannis Panousis, a prominent criminologist at the University of Athens who was hospitalized in February after being set upon during a lecture by extremists with iron bars and sledgehammers.

After the attack on Mr. Panousis, academics avoided publicly condemning assaults because they feared reprisals. Now they are speaking out.

“This can’t go on,” said Konstantinos Moutzouris, rector of the National Technical University of Athens, as the Athens Polytechnic is officially called. “We have to reconsider who we are, where we stand, what we believe in,” Mr. Moutzouris said Monday, noting that “the time has come” to reassess, but not abolish, the asylum law.

Last month the rector of the National Technical University and two other university officials faced criminal charges for “violation of duty” over the institution’s failure to stop its computer terminals being used to update the Web site of the Athens branch of the anti-capitalist, pro-anarchist news network Indymedia. Responding to the charges, the university said it would not engage in any kind of censorship “regardless of the ideological or political gap that might separate it from the opinions expressed.” ( Ah...finally the real target of the state is shown-Molly )

Comments by academics, and the Indymedia affair, have propelled the debate over whether the asylum law should change. Television talk shows have been dominated by the subject, with left-leaning politicians and students mostly objecting to such a move while most with centrist and right-wing allegiances support it.

The new Socialist government appears to be holding back. Education Minister Anna Diamantopoulou condemned the attack on Mr. Kittas as “brute and unprovoked fascism” but ruled out changes to the law. She noted, however, that the government was “ready to back the decisions of university authorities,” who have the right to invite the police onto campus but rarely do so because the move is considered provocative.

Although the government is keeping its distance, the Athens Law School on Tuesday took a bold step toward restricting access to its campus, approving a program to issue identity cards for students and to place guards at its gates.

Successive governments have balked at reforming the asylum law for fear of a backlash. Most Greeks are still sensitive to the sight of police officers near universities, too reminiscent of the tanks that rolled onto the campus of the Athens Polytechnic in 1973.

Some say that a full review of the law is not necessary. According to Mr. Manthos, the rector in Thessaloniki, the legislation does not need to be reformed but implemented. “The law plainly states that when crimes are being committed on campus, like the manufacture of firebombs for use in riots, the police can enter without seeking approval,” he said. But he noted that “prevention is better than suppression.”

Mr. Panousis, the criminologist, stressed that the problem cannot be solved by force. “It is not just an issue of policing, it is a social problem,” he said. “We have to start speaking out.”

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Finally, here's another item from tghe Occupied London Blog that disputes the story about the attack on the rector of the University of Athens. Now, I have lived long enough to know that "atrocity stories" should generally be given credence, including -and perhaps especially- those that are alleged to have been commited by "our side". One will probably never know the full details of what transpired in the office of the Rector of the University of Athens. I, however, have little doubt that he was assaulted, though obviously nowhere near to the extent that the mainstream press alleges (see NYT article above). If you are "assaulted with iron bars" you obviously and plainly go down for the count, if you are not killed. I also find it incredible that the rector could manage to stagger his way to escape through a large and hostile crowd, particularily if he was beaten by "iron bars". I do, however, think that he was probably the recipient of a few punches and shoves. This, in itself, is bad enough, and it should never have been done. It disgraces the movement, and the perpetrators should be called to account. I am not amongst those who think that there should be a "get out of jail free" card for those on "my side" who engage in foolish, counterproductive and vicious acts just because of their "feelings". Politics is one thing and psychotherapy is another, and the two should never be mixed. OK, enough of my preaching. Here's the story.

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Anti-repression demonstration in Athens ends; cops still surrounding the Propylea buildings; attempts to close down the Law school radio station; Resalto arrestees’ bails run into tens of thousands of euros :
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
The anti-repression demo that had been called for in Athens ended a few hours ago. Called by far-leftist groups (EEK, Network for Social and Political Rights, and others – sorry if forgetting someone and please add!) the demo was also joined by many anarchists. The cops, for a second concecutive night, were provokatedly standing in front of the courtyard of the Athens University buildings on Panepistimiou Street, blocking the demonstrators’ access to the academic asylum. This, after the fabricated “lethal” attack against the Director of the University of Athens: As we have said already, two Occupied London contributors witnessed the director leaving the area holding his head – but with no sight of any blood, let alone the “heart attack” he supposedly suffered. And yet this “lethal” attack has been used as a perfect pretext for a full-on attack on the academic asylum: Other university directors have openly announced their willingless to reconsider the asylum; already, the Law School’s administration has decided to force-evict the student radio hosted on its premises and to ban the use of its facilities for any “non-academic” purposes.

Meanwhile, the bail for the released comrades from Resalto is running into tens of thousands of euros (18-20,000) and there is an urgent need to raise funds for their support. More info will be published here very soon.

INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT-GREECE:

GREECE ERUPTS ONCE MORE:

Just like clockwork one year after the police murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos Greece erupted once more into rioting. The underlying causes are, after all. still there. Here's how these recent events have been seen by The Guardian in England.

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Greek riots continue into second day:
More clashes during Athens demonstration over fatal police shooting last year of teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos

Comment: The Greek revolution that never was

Street riots continue in Athens

Link to this video
Protesters smashed store windows and threw rocks and firebombs at riot police who responded with teargas today, the second day of violence during commemorations for a teenager shot dead by police a year ago.

The killing of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos led to two weeks of rioting in Greece last year, with gangs of youths smashing, looting and burning shops across the country in protest at heavy-handed police tactics.

Today's clashes broke out during a demonstration by about 3,000 people, mostly secondary school pupils, through the centre of Athens. Several dozen youths towards the back of the march attacked riot police with rocks, firebombs and firecrackers, smashing some of the bus stops, telephone booths and shopfronts not damaged in yesterday's demonstration.

Protesters injured a passerby who attempted to intervene, beating him unconscious. Police detained at least three youths. Demonstrators scrawled anti-police graffiti and stencilled a photograph of Grigoropoulos on shop windows and walls along the demonstration route.

Minor clashes broke out during a march of about 2,000 people in Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city, where police fired teargas to disperse youths pelting them with rocks.

Police said at least 16 officers and five demonstrators were injured yesterday, while 177 people were detained in Athens and another 103 in Thessaloniki. One policeman who lost control of his motorbike struck and injured a female pedestrian, who was tended to by demonstrators until an ambulance arrived.

At Athens University, masked protesters broke into the building, injuring the university's dean and pulling down a Greek flag, replacing it with a black and red anarchist banner. The clashes continued late into the night, and police clashed with protesters in the southern city of Patras and the north-western city of Ioannina.

Last night the civil protection minister, Michalis Chrisochoidis, defended tougher tactics used by police, following criticism from a left wing opposition party. "Police detentions, when justified, are not illegal in a democratic society. Neither is it illegal for judicial officials to press charges," he said. "Vandals and hooligans have nothing to do with democracy."

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And, from another point of view, here are how they are seen at the British LibCom site.

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Riots and police brutality on first day of Alexandros Grigoropoulos murder anniversary:
Riots have broken out in Athens and Salonica during the first day of A. Grigoropoulos murder anniversary with police demonstrating extreme brutality leaving two people seriously wounded by a motorised charge on the Athens march.

Police brutality during the marches to commemorate the first anniversary of Alexandros Grigoropoulos murder surpassed any limit today, in a coordinated operation of barbarity and crude violence against protesters across Greece. Under socialist orders police violence has left dozens of people wounded.

In Athens the protest march called at 13:00 in Propylea was attacked by riot police forces before even starting. Protesters fought back erecting flaming barricades and forcing the police to retreat with use of rocks. Protesters also occupied the rectorial headquarters of the University of Athens in Propylea, lowering the Greek flag and flying a black flag in its place. The march continued to Omonoia square where more clashes took place and several shops were destroyed -one consumed in flames. At Syntagma square motorised police forces (Delta team) charged the march from Ermou street. After the charge the Delta-team thugs dismounted and threw rocks at the protesters. As a cause of the police orgy in violence, an elderly member of the Worker’s Revolutionary Party-Trotskyist (EEK) has been reported to be in serious condition due to head injuries: Ms Koutsoumbou, a veteran prisoner of the anti-dictatorship struggle, was hit by a Delta force motorbike during the mounted charge on the crowd. According to Savas Michail, leading member of EEK and major radical philosopher, Ms Koutsoumbou is in intensive care having received far worse hits than during her tortures by the colonels' junta. One more man has been hospitalised with serious injuries. At the time 60 people are reported detained.

In Salonica the 3,000 strong protest march turned violent when riot police attacked it without any provocation with tear gas and blast grenades. Clashes ensued along the main avenue of the city. The police surrounded some 200 protesters outside the Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace, but were liberated by the rest of the march. The previous night the police broke the university asylum in the Salonica Polytechnic arresting 8 people who the authorities claim had attacked the International Expo with molotov cocktails. The march in Salonica has not been concluded at the time of writing and the situation is particularly tense as the protesters are returning to the main avenue to protest against police brutality.

In Larissa the protest march proceeded through the main streets of the city smashing CCTV cameras, coming under attack by riot police forces. The protesters erected barricades and engaged the cops with stones and other projectiles.

There is little information about the course of the marches in other Greek cities.

At the same time, the 21 people arrested in the anarchist social centre Resalto last night have been charged under the notorious anti-terrorist law for construction and distribution of explosives (beer bottles and two bottles of heating oil).

The protest marches for the 1st anniversary of Alexandros Grigoropoulos murder by cops will continue on Monday, while at 21:00 on Sunday there will be a memorial demo at the spot of his shooting in Exarcheia.

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The present "socialist" PASOC government is proving to be at least as brutal and perhaps more so than the previous conservative one of last year. One might wonder why ? Perhaps it is because they have other masters whom they have to serve. Who these puppet-masters might be is suggested by the following article from the business website Market Watch. It seems the Greek government is trying to step through a lot of different doo-doo, and creative accounting no longer serves to hide their problems.

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Greek stocks fall 3% amid deficit worries; S&P may cut rating:
Protesters and police clash on anniversary of youth's death:
By Polya Lesova, MarketWatch
FRANKFURT (MarketWatch) -- Stocks in Greece fell nearly 3% on Monday, as Standard & Poor's warned it may lower the country's credit rating because of the ballooning government deficit.

In Athens, the benchmark ASE stock index dropped 2.7% to 2,318 points, underperforming other European markets. See full story.

In comparison, the pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index /quotes/comstock/22c!sxxp (ST:SXXP 247.88, -1.15, -0.46%) edged down 0.3%.

The Greek financial sector was hit hard. Shares of National Bank of Greece /quotes/comstock/13*!nbg/quotes/nls/nbg (NBG 6.03, -0.29, -4.59%) fell 5.6% and those of Piraeus Bank SA dropped 4% in intraday trading.

Shares of EFG Eurobank Ergasias declined 6%, while Alpha Bank declined 3.3%.
Cyprus-based Marfin Popular Bank PCL fell 5.1%.

In other sectors, Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Co. /quotes/comstock/13*!cch/quotes/nls/cch (CCH 23.97, +0.34, +1.44%) gained 2.4%.

Shares of property developer Babis Vovos International Construction tumbled 6.7%.

The sell-off came as Standard & Poor's placed on Monday Greece's A- long-term sovereign credit rating on a credit watch with negative implications, meaning that the agency may lower the rating.

S&P said it plans to decide on the rating when it receives more information from the Greek authorities on their plans to counter intensifying economic and fiscal pressures.

The agency may downgrade the rating by one notch to BBB+ if it sees the government's fiscal assumptions as "unrealistic."

"The fiscal consolidation plans outlined by the new government are unlikely to secure a sustained reduction in fiscal deficits and the public debt burden," said S&P credit analyst Marko Mrsnik in a statement.

The government of Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou, which took office in October, has recently acknowledged the large budget shortfall it inherited from its predecessor.

The estimate for this year's deficit was raised to 12.7% of gross domestic product, more than six percentage points higher than previous official projections.

Previous administrations have repeatedly misreported fiscal deficits, S&P said.
Deficit concerns
Worries over Greece's ballooning budget deficit have been growing in recent weeks.

Greek banks have underperformed the European financial sector by about 12% during the last month, and the uncertainty over Greece's fiscal position is the main reason for this underperformance, wrote Alexander Kyrtsis, an analyst at UBS, in a note to clients dated Friday.

The other key reasons are the banks' reliance on the European Central Bank's discount window as well as credibility issues following numerous restatements of the situation with public finances, according to UBS.

"Liquidity at the Greek banks is good, therefore gradual ECB disengagement is not a major issue and the related earnings impact will be small," Kyrtsis said.

"The only way to bring the deficit down is to tighten fiscal policy," he said. "Fiscal tightening in the form of direct and indirect taxes and limited government spending is likely to result in a drag on Greece's GDP, thus affecting loan growth and asset quality."

UBS lowered its rating on Piraeus Bank to neutral from buy, but it maintained buy ratings on EFG Eurobank, Alpha Bank and Marfin Popular Bank. It also reiterated its neutral rating on National Bank of Greece.

Separately, police and protesters clashed in Athens amid marches to commemorate the first anniversary of the police shooting of a teenager, according to media reports.

The latest disturbances were a continuation of clashes that started over the weekend and resulted in the arrest of dozens of protesters, reports said on Monday.

The killing of a 15-year-old last December triggered extensive riots in Greece, but the scale of the latest protests is reportedly much smaller.

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Finally, here's another report from LibCom about day 2 of the contest between the government and protesters.

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Second day of clashes in Greece in anniversary of Alexandros Grigoropoulos murder:
A second day of protest marches occupations and clashes across Greece marked the first anniversary of Alexandros Grigoropoulos murder as pupils take to the streets.

The second day of the anniversary of Alexandros Girgoropoulos murder was marked with protest marches, occupations and large scale riots in major Greek cities.

Monday was the day of pupils as pan-educational marches against police brutality and in memory of Alexis were staged in all major Greek cities with the Teachers Union and ADEDY (major umbrella union) calling a 3-hour labour stopage to allow people to attend the marches.

In Athens, people started gathering at Propylea at 12:00. Quickly a mass of 13-17 year old pupils attacked riot police forces gathered on Akadimias street. The pupils first attacked the cops with oranges but soon escalated with use of rocks and broken marbles. The police was forced to retreat many times in a rain of projectiles before the march finally started its way towards the Parliament. During the clashes before the beginning of the march 9 people were arrested. Riot police forces came soon again under attack by protesters and resorted to extensive use of tear gas. More clashes occurred before Omonoia square. The 10,000 strong march continued to Klafthmonos square where the march halted due to riot police forces positioning themselves along its sides on the pavement. Marchers demanded the immediate removal of police forces, and started moving only after this was granted. The march then reached Syntagma square and the Greek parliament. On the way back to Propylea the march found the university asylum blocked by riot police forces which engaged the front of the march forcing the protesters to move towards Omonoia, many seeking refuge at the Polytechneio.

Clashes between protesters around the Polytechneio and police forces ensued throughout the afternoon, until the Polytechnic occupation made an exodus in the form of a march at around 18:30 towards Omonoia square where more clashes took place. Unlike yesterday there was no use of the delta-team in the repression operations.

At the same time smaller marches of pupils took to the streets of many Athens neighborhoods. In Kalithea 150 pupils attacked the local police station with sticks rocks and oranges damaging several police cars. In Patisia, 200 pupils attacked the local police station at Agias Lavras with rocks. In Kesariani pupils attacked their local police station with rocks and oranges.

In Salonica a 5,000 strong protest march took to the streets of the city and was soon attacked with tear gas by the riot police triggering a response in stones. When the march returned to the Polytechneio, delta team police thugs broke into the university asylum with their motorbikes and threw tear gas canisters into the building, detaining several people. As a response to the third violation of university asylum in the city during the last three days, protesters occupied the rectorial headquarters of the Aristotelian University. Later a protest march was formed against police brutality and marched again on the streets of the city.

In Ioannina more than 1,500 people marched in the streets of the city attacking capitalist and state targets. Battles developed between the protesters and the police after the former attacked the courts of the city.

In Larissa a thousand strong protest march took to the streets of the city, with the block of pupils attacking the riot police with oranges and rocks.

In Chania, Crete, extended clashes between protesters and riot police broke out in the centre of the city with protesters smashing banks and erecting barricades.

In Irakleio, Crete, clashes broke out between riot police forces and protesters outside the courts of the city where the arrested of yesterday's march were interrogated. The protesters attacked and damaged several police cars and a riot police van, while pupils attacked the back side of the courts themselves. At evening another march took to the streets of the city but was quickly attacked by riot police forces which managed to disperse it with use of force and tear gas.

In Rhodes, clashes broke out between riot police and protesters after the former tried to arrest an pupil attacking a bank. During the clashes one more person was arrested. As a result the protesters have occupied university premises demanding their immediate release.

In Tripoli clashes developed between pupils and riot policemen when the latter blocked the way of the pupil's march.

In the city of Kozani protesters have occupied the city hall denouncing police brutality.

In the island of Samos a pupil protest march took to the streets of Karlovasi, while another pupil protest march in Vathi attacked the local police station as well as the municipal headquarters and the city hall with eggs.

Protest marches also took place in many other towns like Naousa, on Paros island, Zakynthos, Volos and Katerini.

On the legal front, 10 people arrested on Saturday have been released from custody. During the hearing process 13-14 year old pupils from a nearby school marched to the courts erecting barricades on the streets blocking the traffic to and from the central courthouse of Athens.

Regarding the comrades of Resalto and the occupation of the Keratsini city hall, at 13:00 a demo was formed outside the courts of Peiraeus in expectation of the 21 arrested of Resalto, the anarchist social centre raided on Saturday. During the demo a local pupil's protest march joined the protesters piling the riot police guarding the courts with oranges. Meanwhile the city hall and local council of Keratsini published an announcement condemning the arrests of the occupiers of the city hall, and demanding their immediate release. According to the announcement there have been no damages done to the premises during the occupation to allow a police intervention. At 14:45 the interrogating authorities waved the anti-terrorist charges against the 21 arrested of Resalto, deciding they should be tried only for possession and of explosive substances (kerosene heating oil). At 19:00 the 41 arrested occupiers of the Keratsini city hall were released amongst high fists and solidarity slogans of protesters outside the court. They will be tried only for non-criminal offences tommow. The 21 of Resalto are still being interrogated at the time of writing.

Protest marches against police brutality in the last few days have been called for tomorrow in both Salonica and Athens.

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A NOTE ON SOURCES:

For those interested in following events as they develop the LibCom site is excellent, and the comments that are appended to articles often give many more interesting details.

Also useful in days to come will be the following sites:

1)Occupied London Blog

2)Athens Indymedia (English section)

3)Grecia Libertaria (for those who can read Spanish)

I will be appending other sources in the future.

INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT-GREECE:

GREECE STILLS SIMMERS:

The following longish article originally comes from a left communist group Blaumachen, based since June 2005 in Thessaloniki Greece. The English translation below is from the LibCom site. While I do not agree with the general politics of "left communism" I find the following narrative remarkably free of its prejudices and a very interesting perspective on the recent events in Greece. So...

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Greece unrest: Like a winter with a thousand Decembers - TPTG/Blaumachen
Reflections on the recent unrest in Greece; "The rise of new organisational forms and contents of struggle is being discussed by all the insurgent elements"...
‘VIOLENCE means working for 40 years, getting miserable wages and wondering if you ever get retired…

VIOLENCE means state bonds, robbed pension funds and the stock-market fraud…

VIOLENCE means being forced to get housing loans which finally you pay back as if they were gold…

VIOLENCE means the management’s right to fire you any time they want…

VIOLENCE means unemployment, temporary employment, 400 Euros wage with or without social security…

VIOLENCE means work ‘accidents’, as bosses diminish their workers’ safety costs…

VIOLENCE means being driven sick because of hard work …

VIOLENCE means consuming psycho-drugs and vitamins in order to cope with exhausting working hours…

VIOLENCE means working for money to buy medicines in order to fix your labour power commodity…

VIOLENCE means dying on ready-made beds in horrible hospitals, when you can’t afford bribing.
Proletarians from occupied GSEE, Athens, December 2008

Last December, the wind of insurrection blew over the cities in Greece. The joyful and festive atmosphere of Christmas was set on fire together with the Christmas tree on Syntagma square. The assassination of the 15-year-old student Alexis Grigoropoulos by a special police guard on the 6th ignited the spark.

In general, the social unrest of December can be characterized as a violent proletarian rebellion which had a sudden, mass and wild burst that gradually gave way to less violent, more imaginative and more political acts but with fewer people involved.

As far as the class composition of the rebellion is concerned, it ranged from high school students and university students to young workers and unemployed. Some of the students and the workers were second-generation immigrants (mostly Albanians, although there were also some immigrants of other nationalities) and there were also some older workers with more or less stable jobs.

As for numbers, gradually more and more people participated in actions that took the form of an insurrection. On the first day there were just a few hundreds of antiauthoritarians around Exarchia -the place of the murder- that started the violent confrontations with the cops. Later in the night, a spontaneous demo took place after an initiative of students and leftists – around 2,000 people participated and started riots in Patission and Akadimias Avenues, while one hundred people smashed Ermou st, the most commercial street of Athens. Riots also broke out in the streets of Thessaloniki where a spontaneous demo headed for and attacked the city’s central police station.

On the second day more than 10,000 appeared in the streets (mostly students, antiauthoritarians again and people from left parties and organizations); on the third day more than 20,000 in Athens, 7,000 in Thessaloniki and many thousands all over Greece joined demos that were soon turned into riots. Those involved in street fighting with the police were a lot; 10,000 seems to be a rather moderate calculation. There were a lot more all over the country, particularly on Monday, the third day of the riots. On this day, banks, public buildings and mostly big stores were either smashed, looted or burned down. Those involved in the violent acts of this day were not a homogeneous mass: they were a multitude of young people -high school and university students, waged workers, unemployed, immigrants, football hooligans, drug addicts- with only a portion of them having connections with the antiauthoritarian milieu. Precisely because of the motley composition of the multitude and its violence, a lot of politicos (even some organized anarchists) found it too ‘uncontrollable’ and refrained themselves from what happened. From Monday morning and during the next days there were attacks against the police stations all over the country that were mainly made by high school students. Some of those attacks were very violent with police cars being overturned and use of Molotov cocktails (mostly in the west suburbs of Athens and the port of Pireaus) but demonstrating outside the police stations became quite generalized all over Greece, even in some posh areas or small towns, with milder forms of protest. It was actually through the spontaneous violent protests of high school students that the riots spread and thus took nationwide dimensions. When we talk about clashes with cops, we are mostly talking about barricades, throwing stones and molotov cocktails and not physical combats. Generally, not only the rioters, but also the police preferred not to engage in “close-combat” making excessive use of tear gas instead.

As for immigrants, second generation young Albanians who took part in the riots are so well integrated into society that only when they started talking Albanian to each other you could tell that they were immigrants. Most of them have grown up here and that is the reason why they could take part so extensively in confrontations with cops, in attacks against state buildings and banks and lootings as well alongside Greek young proletarians. They felt more ‘comfortable’ doing such acts than other immigrants, mostly Asians and Africans who still live on the fringe, isolated in their ethnic communities. It was mostly fear that prevented other immigrant communities from joining the violent confrontations outside their neighborhoods and not ‘lack of conscience’. It was easier for them to participate in the riots through looting or frequenting the open National Technical University occupation in the centre of Athens where big communities of them live; when the riots erupted near ‘their’ neighborhoods, that was their ‘contribution’ to them. On the other hand, they received the most violent onslaught from both the police and the media propaganda. They were presented as ‘plunderers’ and ‘thieves’ and in some cases there were pogrom style attacks against them by fascists and undercover cops in civilian outfits.
In general, you could say that, apart from high school and university students, those who had a more active role in the revolt were generally young workers, most of them having precarious or ‘flexible’ jobs. In the streets there were young (or not so young) workers from various sectors like schools, construction, tourist and entertainment services, transportation, even media. As far as factory workers are concerned, there are not any accurate estimations about their individual participation in the riots, since no reports from such workplaces became known. During the GSEE occupation, there were some ideas about distributing leaflets to factories and calling workers from specific workplaces to come to the occupation, however the splits among the participants (mentioned briefly in our chronology of the events) made any further action -apart from intervening in nearby call centres- difficult and thus several opportunities were missed. Shortly after the immigrant cleaner Kuneva, one of the workers that had visited the occupied GSEE to meet the squatters, was attacked with sulphuric acid, the ‘insurgent workers’ alongside other people organised the first solidarity activities. They even managed to get some unions into solidarity activities in January. The riot, in general, was not felt in any significant way in the workplaces, in the sense that no strikes were called to support it. The only exceptions were the teachers’ strike on the day of the funeral of young Alexis and the big participation in the strike demo against the state budget on the 10th of December. Apart from these, the rebellion left workplaces untouched.

Judging from the slogans and the attacks against the police, an overwhelmingly anti-cop sentiment was dominant during the days of the rebellion. The cop stood for power and particularly the brutality and arrogance of power. However, it was as symbols of a certain power - the power of money, the power to impose the exploitation of labour and deepen the class lines separating Greek society- that big stores, banks as well as state buildings (town halls, prefecture buildings, ministries) were attacked, burnt down or occupied. So, we could speak of a dominant and widespread anti-cop, anti-state, anti-capitalist feeling. Even the intellectuals of the left acknowledged the class element of the rebellion and some mainstream newspapers admitted that ‘young people’s rage’ was not expressed only because of police violence. The cops were rather the most visible and crudest tip of an iceberg made of government corruption scandals, a security-surveillance state - armoured after the 2004 Olympics - that does not even hesitate to shoot in cold blood, a continuous attack on wages, an increase of working class reproduction costs through the gradual demolition of the previous pension and health system, a deterioration of work conditions and an increase of precarious jobs and unemployment, a load of overwork imposed on high school and university students, a tremendous destruction of nature, a glamorous facade consisting of abstract objects of desire in malls and on TV ads, obtainable only if you endure a huge amount of exploitation and anxiety. In the first days of the revolt you could almost smell all these reasons in the air and then a lot of texts, articles, leaflets followed, written both by insurgents or sympathizers and ‘commentators’ to acknowledge that there was ‘something deeper’. This ‘deeper thing’ that everybody was talking about was the need to overcome the individual isolation from real, communal life [gemeinwesen], an isolation that all the above historical reasons have created. The spontaneity and uncontrollable nature of this insurrection was proven by the absence of political proposals, thus by an explicit rejection of politics. It was mostly leftists that insisted in particular demands like the resignation of the government, the repeal of the anti-terrorist act, the disarmament of cops and the disbandment of special police forces. However, the feeling that there lay ‘something deeper’ in all that was so dominant that it alone explains the helplessness of some parties of the opposition, leftist organizations, even some anarchists as mentioned before. There were no specific political demands and this, combined with their ferocity, made the riots all too threatening for the usual forces of recuperation and manipulation.

From the very first days of the revolt three universities got also occupied in the centre of Athens: the National Technical University of Athens, the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Economics. Each one of them was occupied by a different tendency in the movement. The National Technical University, which is the nearest one to Exarchia square was the main place for organising clashes with the police. Its occupants were almost a cross-section of the rebels in Athens: young workers (immigrant or Greek), students and marginalised elements –and many of them anarchists. The occupants of the Faculty of Law, mainly leftists and some anti-authoritarians, organized demos and discussions. In one of them, leftist unionists gathered in order to organize and ‘spread the rebellion’ to workplaces, without actually doing anything apart from putting out some flyers. The Faculty of Economics was occupied mostly by anarchist groups and antiauthoritarians who wanted to use the building for counter-information purposes. A lot of emphasis was put on the organization of everyday activities. They took over the restaurant of the university and workshops were formed in order to run the occupation and to organize actions outside. The expropriated resources of the university were also used in other activities, serving as an infrastructure. Many comrades took part in actions organized from there, even if they did not take part in the occupation itself. All occupations served as ‘red bases’ of the movement from which subversive actions were organized and where rebels could seek refuge, if necessary. In Thessaloniki, there were two such occupations in the city center: the School of Drama was occupied by anarchist militants and drama students, while the offices of Thessaloniki’s Bar Association were occupied until the fourth day of the rebellion by students, mainly leftists.

We should also mention here the dozens of occupations of university departments voted for by students’ general assemblies and the hundreds of occupations of high schools all over the country.

Gradually, the violence of the first days proved to be creative in the sense that it was the necessary presupposition for more imaginative and organized actions that followed. After the first five days of rioting, there was an occupation at the Town Hall of Ag. Dimitrios (a southern suburb of Athens) organized by local anarchist groups and some of the workers working there (predominantly blue collar ones). The occupants organized meetings with local people, called ‘popular assemblies’, trying to broaden the revolt organizing local actions, always connected to the revolt. They even tried to let certain services run in the building without the mediation of the municipal authorities. The next day, an information desk of the Ministry of Interior at Chalandri, a northern suburb of Athens, was occupied and demonstrations and actions always connected with the revolt were organized.

In Thessaloniki, in Sykies, a working-class suburb of the city, the Town Hall was partly occupied for a few days, and some days later there followed the occupation of a municipal library in the Ano Poli district of the city of Thessaloniki which served as a place where ‘popular assemblies’ and demonstrations were organized. In all these activities, the common new characteristic was an attempt to ‘open up’ the rebellion towards the neighbourhoods. These assemblies were understood as ‘neighbourhood assemblies of struggle’ or ‘people’s assemblies’, as they were called. In most cases, there appeared distinct tendencies inside this social ‘opening’, particularly as the rebellion was simmering down. One tendency wanted to organize a community of struggle broadening the issues of the rebellion, another one preferred a kind of activity more orientated towards dealing with local matters on a steady basis. In the beginning, the assemblies looked pretty innovative and lively. There was not a formal procedure of decision making or majority rule and initiatives were encouraged. However, by the end of January, the occupations of buildings - whether public, union or municipal ones - did not flourish anymore and it is not clear if there is going to be a new movement coming out of this short-lived practice.
Among the ‘population’, or better say the working class as a whole, there was sympathy towards the rioters not only because it was their children fighting and demonstrating out there, but also because they felt that it was a just fight. Particularly the burning of banks was very popular since thousands of people are deep in debt. Looting was not accepted, at last not overtly, because of the strong respect for private property – or, in the case of leftists and some anarchists, for morality reasons. Generally speaking, there was a lot of sympathy and interest for the insurgents but very little active involvement from the part of the ‘population’.

From the very first moment after the killing on December 6, state and media mechanisms were activated to confront the explosion of the proletarian rage. Initially, they attempted to put possible reactions under control exploiting the spectacular submission of the resignations by Pavlopoulos and Chinofotis (the Minister and ex-Deputy Minister of the Interior, correspondingly), the Prime Minister’s promise that anybody responsible for the death of the 15-year-old kid will be ‘exemplary punished’, all oppositional parties’ and many journalists’ disapproval of the government and the ‘discreet stance’ of cops against demonstrators. However, very quickly, they unleashed every form of repression: threats of declaring the country in a state of emergency, mobilization of fascists and para-governmental organizations of ‘indignant citizens’, dozens of arrests and beating of demonstrators, more shootings by cops in Athens. All bosses’ parties in a body (with the Communist Party [KKE] being the most vulgar amongst them) and the TV scamps attempted to spread fear. Similarly, the two major union confederations, GSEE and ADEDY, cancelled the routine strike demonstrations against new year’s state budget when they suspected the danger of those demos being transformed into riots. However, against union bureaucrats’ jabber about government’s failing to ensure social order and peace, demos did take place during the general strike day and were indeed wild. Thus, reality was different: bosses were those who were afraid. When the foreign minister of France stated from the very first days of the insurgency ‘I would like to express our concern, everyone’s concern about the progress of conflicts in Greece’, he would express bosses’ fear for the possibility of this social explosion to be circulated, since solidarity demos to insurgents in Greece were taking place in many cities all over the world. Particularly in France, the Ministry of Education withdrew the impeding reform in secondary schools, thus giving an end to an emerging movement of high school kids applauding the flames of insurgency in Greek cities and towns.

On the side of state and media propaganda, the dominant strategy was that of separation of the subjects of the insurrection. They were either presenting the insurgency as an adventure of teenagers, whose inherent sensitivity due to their age gives them a right to rebel against their parents’ world (as if proletarian parents wouldn’t rightfully desire this world’s destruction) or they were mobilizing racist reflexes using the fake separation ‘Greek demonstrators - immigrant looters’. They were mainly attempting to separate demonstrators between good-peaceful ones and bad-rioters. The right of demonstrating was affirmed by bosses and their lackeys only to suppress the insurrection. Because they wanted to avoid any further socialization of violent behaviours in the streets, they sought by all means to present them as actions of ‘antiauthoritarians’ or ‘hooligans’ who intruded into demonstrations of otherwise peace-loving civilians. Smashing as a proletarian action declared the everyday existence of police departments, banks or chain stores as moments of a silent war. It also manifested the rupture with the democratic management of social conflict, which tolerates demos against this or that matter, provided that they are deprived of any autonomous class action. Invoking the ultimate political rampart of capital’s dominance, that is democracy, the prime minister declared that ‘social struggles or the death of a teenager cannot be confused with actions against democracy’. Democracy of course approves devastating cities and the countryside, polluting atmosphere and contaminating water, bombing, selling weapons, creating dumps of human beings, forcing us to stop being humans in order to become objects-that-work (or look for work, since more and more people are or will be unemployed because of the crisis). He thus implicated that some people can destroy anything they want as long as new chances for profit are created and development is promoted. However, doing this against private property constitutes the ultimate scandal for a society which has established this essential right from its early birth. Burning and smashing constitute wounds to this society’s legitimacy. The ‘hooded rioters’ is an empty notion, intended for police use exclusively. Police monopolize the shaping of the threat’s profile. We should add here that since the shooting of a riot-cop in Exarchia on 4 January police repression against demonstrators has escalated. Locals who defend a park in the city of Athens, farmers who intend to drive their tractors to the parliament and demonstrators against the imprisonment of those who have been arrested up till now have been attacked not only with tear gas but with grenades as well.

For the image-producing machine, the very opposite of the ‘hooded rioter’ (that is, the image constructed to separate proletarians) was the ‘peaceful civilian whose property was destroyed’. Who was this celebrated ‘peaceful civilian’, enraged by smashing? In this occasion, ‘peaceful civilians’ were the small businessmen, the owners of ‘small’ stores, the petit bourgeoisie. The state has been fooling even them, since many of them are being destroyed by the capitalist crisis. During last December, turnover was half of that of December 2007, not only for streets with expensive stores, but also for open-air markets; yet no such market was attacked during the riots… Bosses claimed that smashing stores had made many people lose their jobs, while at the same time one hundred thousand layoffs are to be announced soon in Greece because of the crisis. However, whatever smashes of ‘small’ stores were not carried out by hooded state servants were commented by workers in such stores in a leaflet written by the ‘Autonomous Initiative of Shop-assistants of Larisa’: ‘We denounce whoever attempts to terrorize and convince us that defending some properties stands above human life and dignity; besides, these properties have been created by precarious workers’ unpaid, black and surplus labour; no small properties have been damaged during symbolic attacks against banks and public buildings [indeed, this is true for Larissa and other provincial cities]. If they really care about shop-assistants, they should increase the miserable wages they give them, they should learn what social security is and they should create human working hours and conditions’.

The parties of the left were taken aback by the riots and had a varied attitude towards them. SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left), a coalition of Synaspismos and other minor leftist organizations, kept a balanced attitude towards the rebellion. The top leaders of the party machine did not hesitate to keep their distances from the violence of the rioters, even to denounce them, however, in a moderate way compared to the frenzy of the KKE. On the tremendous night of the 8th of December demonstrators of Syriza abused violent demonstrators without however trying to prevent them. Ordinary members or voters of Syriza were very sympathetic in most cases towards the rebellion although presenting it as a ‘youth explosion’ and consequently as something external to them. Students of Syriza took part in the demos against the police and they had a milder attitude towards them, in most of the cases. KKE, understanding perfectly that it was their very political power as a part of the political system which was at stake, chose to adopt a cop-like attitude resembling more the far-Right, condemning rioters as a whole as ‘provocateurs’, manipulated by domestic and foreign ‘dark centres’. As for leftist parties and organizations and KOE in particular (a member of the SYRIZA coalition), they were in favour of the rebellion as an explosion ‘expected’ by them, but one without ‘positive’ demands. That’s why they were eager to present a list of demands asking the government to resign so that they could exploit politically the change of the political personnel. From the various trotskyist groups some were more active than others and participated in the Faculty of Law occupation and KKE M-L had a rather positive attitude towards the rebellion, abstaining of course from the clashes with the police. In general, leftists, except for few groups, had a rather superficial relation to the rebellion taking mostly part in demos but not in other activities.

The strength of fascists in Greece cannot be compared to that of the fascists in Italy during the 70’s. The main neo-nazi organisation (Chrisi Avgi –i.e. Golden Dawn) can count on a few hundred militants all over Greece. There’s also LAOS, a far right populist party which is the fifth party of the Greek parliament with 3,8% of the vote, but it’s hard to calculate its militant basis. Although right-wing militants took part in the repression of the revolt in the cities of Patra (mostly) and Larissa (to a lesser degree), it’s impossible to make a comparison between the situation in Italy and the situation in Greece because fascists in Greece are less organized. It was one of the state’s resort when media propaganda and cop repression were not sufficient but only in Patra they have an organisational basis (one with a long tradition, indeed –Temponeras, a high-school teacher was murdered in one occupied school in Patra in 1991 by the then secretary of the Youth branch of the right wing party, which is now in government).

The riots were connected with a particular political subculture, that of anarchists and anti-authoritarians in Greece, who played a very important role during the first two days of the riots and especially the first one. Their immediate violent reaction to the murder triggered off a social explosion that surpassed them and spread all over Greece. Because of the activities of students and other parts of the proletariat who left their own marks on it, the rebellion of December cannot be reduced to the rituals of street-fighting this sub-culture seemed traditionally so keen on and trapped in, as well. (Molly Note- the authors of this piece are being unfair to the Greek anarchist movement by this characterization. There is indeed a section of the Greek movement, the Autonomists, who have reduced anarchism to nothing more than "street fighting" and petty vandalism. The majority of the movement, however, has a much more intelligent idea of "what is to be done.)

Although the rebellion has ended, there are still visible traces of it. Some occupations remain, solidarity to those arrested and the spirit of the rebellion still unites various elements who took part in the insurrection (although certain sectarian and ideological signs appear), new struggles emerge with more radical characteristics and violence against the state seems to be a lot more legitimized.

The rise of new organisational forms and contents of struggle is being discussed by all the insurgent elements. Politically, those left parties and organisations that were taken by surprise and stood in awe of the rebellion will not offer much. They are just hoping for new members and seem rather untouched by the rebellion. The unions, both as a form and content of struggle, small or big, remained untouched by the insurrection or even hostile to it. The mainstream parties cannot hide their fear confronted with such powerful gestures of disobedience and attack on all institutions. There are certain signs of a return to the normality of both everyday life and politics as usual but also traces of new alliances and practices which will need time to get a clearer form and content.
TPTG, BLAUMACHEN

4 February 2009

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The fight on the part of the state and the political parties to recover "lost ground" after the rebellion goes on today. The following, also from the LibCom site, tells one tale of resistance to this project.

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Lawyers General Union against anti-anarchist legislation in Greece:
The Lawyers General Union of Greece has condemned and is threatening to mobilise against the police-state measures proposed by the Ministry of Justice.

The general council of Lawyer Unions of Greece has expressed its opposition to the criminalisation of masking and hooding and the return of the fascist law regarding "insulting authorities". The emergency assembly of the council headed by the president of Greek Union of Criminologists published its decision on Tuesday 24/3 after new totalitarian proclamations by the Minister of Justice who claimed that protesters arrested with 'distorted features' will have no right to monetary exchange of their penalty nor will the universal right for probation be applied to their cases, even after appeal court procedures. The Lawyer's General Council, the highest organ of solicitors in the country with powers ranging to striping individual lawyers of their soliciting permits, has announced that it is ready to mobilize against the police-state legislation.

It is widely beleived that the proposed legislation is designed to target and criminalise the ideological scene of anarchism, effectively returning to the 1930s "Idionimo", a law that criminalised communism and led to the displacement of thousands to concentration camps in the greek islands. It is telling that Nea Dimokratia, the ruling party, had in 1979 proposed a law for the displacement of homosexuals in concentration camps. The law collapsed under international pressure and social mobilisation at the time.

The General Council of Lawyers condemned the 'anti-hood' law as "deeply undemocratic" and as purely an instrument of propaganda. Regarding the 'insult of authority' law, the rep of the Athens Lawyers Union has expressed bewilderment before "an anachronistic mindset that amidst the crisis is trying to resurrect such laws, which have been condemned in the people's conscience"

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MOLLY NOTE:

The successes of the Greek rebellion were important and inspiring. The failures, however, were at least as glaring. The authors of the above piece allude to them, especially as to the refusal of the general population to join the rebellion. Some of the reasons for this refusal are obviously out of the control of the rebels. Others, however, are not. As left communists the authors of the above would undoubtedly condemn any preliminary organization as "bureaucratic". Be that as it may the events in Greece plainly show the need for preliminary organization to act as beacon for the rebels. NOT to direct it but to give ideas in a coherant form that can be acted upon with the maximun possible speed. Perhaps most importantly rebellion without a positive program will remain only...rebellion. By its very nature it cannot ask the majority of the population to join in unless there is some viable ideal that can be pointed too, an ideal expressed with more than vague genralizations. This is intimatedly connected to the question of organization. The Greek movement has performed admirably, but it cannot expect to do the work of decades in a few short weeks. It is important that these lessons be learned and acted upon.

INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT-GREECE:

THE CONTINUING STRUGGLE IN GREECE:

Things are quieter now in Greece, the crest of the rebellion seemingly passed, but "quiet" is a relative term, especially when speaking of a country such as Greece. For many years now demonstrations and occupations have been an almost daily occurrence. One person estimated that demonstrations in Sytagma Square in front of the Parliament building "averaged" about 2 per week. In addition bombings and other anonymous attacks on the state and business have been an almost as frequent occurrence for years as well. What was unique about December of last year was not the occurrence of demonstrations, occupations and other attacks on the state but rather the scale of what was occurring.

Here, from Athens Indymedia is a report on the continuing struggle in Greece, up to January 6.

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Greece: 25/12 to 6/1 reports:
This is an update on the most critical events of the past two weeks in Greece

It is true, I haven't made any posts for a long time now, but that doesn't mean that things in Greece are dead. On the contrary. I will try to give you an update on the most critical events on the past two weeks.

Attack against Konstantina Kuneva:

On the 23rd of December, Konstantina Kuneva, a Bulgarian migrant worker in Athens and the secretary of the Union of Housekeepers and Cleaners, was attacked with sulfuric acid in front of her home by two men. She was admitted to a hospital in a critical condition. She has burns on her face, head, hands and back and there is a possibility that she will lose her sight. The events before the attack and the testimonies of her fellow unionists and workers show clearly this is an act of punishing her for her involvement in the union. [read more here: http://clandestinenglish.wordpress.com/2008/12/26/konstantina-kuneva-attacked-with-acid/ ]

After the attack, there has been a series of acts of solidarity with Konstantina and against the cleaning company she works for (OIKOMET). OIKOMET is known for sub-letting workers (mostly migrants), who have to work under terrible conditions, paid less than agreed etc. One of the big customers of the company is ISAP (the public rail transport system of Athens) so some of the actions were against ISAP as well. Here is a list (not complete) of the actions:

12/26 Athens: Gathering outside the hospital.

12/27 Athens: Occupation of the offices of ISAP (read: http://katalipsihsap.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/solidarity-to-konstantina-kuneva/ )

12/28 Athens: Demonstration to the hospital

12/29 Athens: Action in a central ISAP station, demonstration and clashes with the police guarding the company's office.

12/30 Thessaloniki: Occupation of the offices of the Trade Unions Center (read: http://clandestinenglish.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/thessaloniki-trade-unions-center-occupation-texts-in-solidarity-with-kkuneva-and-decembers-prosecuted/ )

12/30 Thessaloniki: Demonstration12/31 Athens: Action in central ISAP station

1/3 Athens: Demonstration in Petralona, ticket canceling machines and cameras were smashed (photos: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=960766 )

1/5 Thessaloniki: Demonstration (Photos: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=962264 )

Israeli attack in Gaza

On the 26th of December, as you all know, the Israeli army started a full scale attack on Gaza and protests against the war were triggered all over the world. Same in Greece.

Again, here are some (not all) actions that took place against the war so far:

12/29 Athens: Gathering outside the Israeli embassy. The protesters (500-1000) were attacked by the riot cops guarding the embassy using tear gas. They made some arrests, including one of a young migrant from Syria who broke the police lines and got the Israeli flag down.

12/31-1/1 Athens: Gathering at Sintagma square against the war minutes before the New Year's.

1/3 Athens: Demonstration of 5000people. Protesters threw rocks to the embassy and the to the cops guarding it. The cops fired tear gas.

1/4 Athens: Demonstration of 4000people. Clashes with the cops and some banks smashed (Photos: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=961117#961401 )

Smaller scale protests took place in other cities.

Prisoners support and actions on New Year's

Gatherings outside prisons across the country just before the New Year in solidarity with the prisoners. Many banks, cars and party offices were attacked and there were some clashes with the police.Full article with links to photos and videos:

http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=en&article_id=959537

Actions against consumerism and capitalism

Christmas trees placed in central squares across the country for Christmas celebration were burned as symbolic acts against the apathy and so that people won't forget the murder of young Alexandros.

12/29 Athens: Protest inside the biggest and illegally built mall. 150 protesters with banners took the isles of the shopping mall and shouted slogans. Photos: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=959200http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=959215http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=959228

The slogans on the banners read: “what will be the next sale on our lives”, “work, vote, and shut up”, “shut up and shop”, “I shop therefore I exist”, “work, buy, consume, die” and more.

28/12 Athens: On Sundays the stores are closed in Greece but since it was the last Sunday of the year, some shop owners decided to keep them open, demanding their employees to go to work. Some hundreds of anarchists and leftists gathered outside stores in downtown Athens to keep the stores, if not closed, then with no customers. They shouted slogans and prevented people from going in.

1/3 Xanthi and Kavala: Big chain grocery shops were attacked by anarchists who filled carts with food, cooking oil and other goods, left and gave them away to people shopping in nearby people's markets (farmers markets)

More actions that took place during the 2 last weeks for the murder of Alexandros and in solidarity with the arrestees:

Arson attack against a minister's car.

Soundsystem set up to transmit messages and read communiques and demands in Holargos (Athens), Larisa and Kozani

Occupation of the townhalls in Nauplio and Agrinio, the municipal radio station in Xanthi and Poligiros and of a central cultural space in Athens (Irida).

Gatherings or demonstrations in Ptolemaida, Larisa (300 people), Kalamaria, Arta and Xanthi.

There have been also some attacks/arsons against banks and luxurious cars.

On the night of 1/2, 50 or so people attacked the riot squads guarding the PASOK's offices in Exarhia with molotov coctails. The cops threw tear gas.

A small group threw molotov coctails against the police station in Gianena. Three people were arrested.

More arrests took place in Prolemaida, when the cops detained 12 people gathering to demonstrate. Four people were arrested later when they went to the police station to demand their release, 2 are parents of people initially detained.

Unfortunately the number of the arrests is huge. From from 12/06/08 to 12/21/08: Arrests: 246 - detained/ pretrial custody: 66 (full report: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=958127 )

Shots against riot police and police state in Athens

In the small hours of 1/5, around 3am, there were shots fired in Exarhia. Shortly afterwards it was made known that there was an attack against members of a riot squad guarding the ministry of culture and that a cop was seriously injured.

Immediately after the attack, Exarhia were turned into a police state. Hundreds of riot and plain cops were all around the area, detaining anybody who was on the streets. They drag people out of bars and detained. They even detained people who worked at the bars at that time! The cops were very provocative, making people to strip down to search them and they beat up some. All detained, were transferred to police stations, held there for several hours and most of them were released later that morning. The media says 72 people were detained but they might be more that 100.

When the day came, cops invaded into 10 or so houses to search and detain the residents. All the people detained are “usual suspects” since they are active in the anarchistic movement or had previous arrests.

During the whole day, every street in Exarhia was full of cops and riot cops, like an occupation army, provoking and threatening people. At night, the social space Nosotros was blockaded by riot cops but they didn't raid. Around 150 people gathered to protest and protect those inside.

The raids were carried on on Tuesday. Of all the people detained there have been 8 arrests. It's not yet clear but apparently some of the arrested on the first night and some after searching their houses the next day. None of the arrests is related to the shooting. They are charged with weapon possession for items like gas cans, sledgehammer, gas masks, knives, fireworks. In one of the houses they said they found a bullet and in the attic of cafe an old pistol.

The police use “leaks” towards the media to associate the attack with anarchists of the Exarhia area and to justify the raids, the attacks and the arrests against the movement. Comment taken from http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/ :

"The idea that whoever shot the cop would chose to hide in Eksarhia, or would be active in one of the most public and well-known anarchist groups in the city is absurd, to say the least. What is happening in Athens and Eksarhia in particular at this moment is an obvious attempt by the police to predetermine a connection between the shooting and the movement that has been confronting them en mass for the past few weeks .

During the day, the police claimed that 31 shots were fired against the cops and that there were two guns used: an AK-47 and an MP-5. The AK-47 said is the same that fired against a riot police van on 12/24th and the MP-5 was used in 2007 by the revolutionary organization “Revolutionary Struggle”. The cop that was hurt is recovering. It is odd however that right after the attack it was said that the cop had died, they later said he was critically injured and in the end that he had two wounds, one in his leg and one in his armpit. A revolutionary organization fires 31 bullets against a bunch of cops and hit one of them in the leg and armpit? There was a comment in the Greek Indymedia saying “it seems like they were trying to miss”...Oh and the ballistic tests came out in half a day, when in the case of the murder of Alexandros it took 2 weeks.

It is greatly believed that whoever fired those shots against the cops, is not from inside the movement, since an act like this can only harm it. “Was the riot cop shooting orchestrated by the state?” read it here: http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/2009/01/05/was-the-riot-cop-shooting-orchestrated-by-the-state/"

1/6 A month after the murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos

Residents of Exarhia had called a gathering at the place Alexandros was shot a month ago, demanding the police to leave. More than 1000 people gathered and after the cops retreated towards the police station there was a small demonstration on the streets of the neighborhood.

At the late hours there was a series of attacks:

The police station of Patisia (Athens) was attacked with rocks and molotov cocktails. Two banks, a Starbucks and some offices of the ruling party were also attacked.